


Chapter Twenty-Four: In the Meantime

by CavalierConvoy



Series: MTMTE Series One: Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun [25]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers Generation Two, Transformers: Beast Machines, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hangover, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Murder Mystery, Other, Quantum Mechanics, Shipwrecks, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3515267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierConvoy/pseuds/CavalierConvoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the underground crash site, Pantera pieces together the events leading up to their current predicament, but nothing makes sense and neither she nor Depth Charge fully trusts Hellfire in keeping his borrowed spark from surfacing.</p><p>Three years ago, en route to rendezvous with the Warworld, Skyfire reveals to Artemis his reasonings behind his investigation on the Delphi Outpost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Twenty-Four: In the Meantime

To make due is a promise  
Hard to keep without help  
Never taught to look in  
I'm too concerned with my health  
\--["In The Meantime"](http://youtu.be/mWwhdINdMs8) by Helmet, from  _Meantime_

Unknown Planet  
Two Decacycles Ago

The headaches were intermittent now, the pains sharp but not as incapacitating as they once were. Still, whenever she stood, vertigo would strike and she had to sit down.

With Depth Charge repairing the engines and Hellfire searching for a nav board, she was stuck on supervisor duty.

If Hellfire was right...if this was an alternate time line, where Depth Charge survived his final battle against Rampage...but his familiarity meant that there was a Pantera in that line — in his life — as well.

Sideways thinking made her headache worse. She was a historian. Well, not really. Never got the official designation, never finished the corresponding courses. But the thought of a path going left instead of right...it was intriguing, but it did not fit in her world.

If she had a world anymore.

She stood, testing her vertigo. When she ascertained that she was not going to lose what little contents were in her fuel tank, she approached the starhopper. Depth Charge was underneath the engine compartment, rebuilding the manifold.

"You trust him?" Depth Charge questioned without taking his optics off the task.

"I believe him, but no, I don't trust him. You picking him up? Starscream used to trigger your X sensor."

There was a moment of hesitation. "No. I'm not."

"He's looking for a nav board right now. This place — it looks like a starhopper graveyard. We must be either on a Cybertronian colony or planet."

"Did some scouting earlier," Depth Charge revealed. "Above ground. Looks like someone used a doomsday device, a stasis bomb — everything's frozen. Nothing of use. Don't know the radius. Didn't want to travel too far with you out of it."

"Much appreciated." It had been just over a stel — her time — since they left prehistoric Earth, away from the Beast Wars. Since her Depth Charge was killed. She did not fault him: his need for justice was greater, and she accepted it, moved on. Not without emotion; if anyone could survive the current war raging, it would have been him.

He pushed himself from underneath, sitting up. "Might be the crash," he instigated, "but you're scattered — distant."

"Must be the crash, yeah," she replied. "I'm — out of sorts. Thoughts jumbled. Confused."

"Hmph. Wish I could help."

"I'll get better — give me time." She placed a hand on his shoulder as she turned to leave; he took hold of her wrist and pulled her into his lap. She closed her optics, pressing her head against his chest. _Not falling...I'm not falling..._

"Better?" His faceplate obscured expression, but his tone was softer.

 _Roll with it...second chance._ "Yes," she purred.

The peace — no, not peace, but stability — lasted for a couple of cycles, interrupted by a loud, electronic squawk.  
"Almost forgot about him," Depth Charge grumbled. Pantera sat up, with help, and returned to her feet. "Probably fell into a pit."

"Let's see about getting that engine operational. Here's hoping we can find a local space bridge to get us somewhere — Cybertron, Sirius II, even Earth if needed. Anywhere we can get a comm up."

"And then what?" Depth Charge watched her. "Politically disgraced elder, an insubordinate warden, and a feather duster with the former Air Commander's spark. We ain't going back to Cybertron. Not with the current party in charge. Not even if we turn over the kid."

"We need to find out the political climate, then," she mused, cupping her chin. "Get to a vidscreen, download some subspace news feeds. But we're not turning over Hellfire."

"'Tera — "

"Not until we're certain he's lying."

"'Tera." Now he pulled himself to his full height, took hold of her chin, and locked gazes with her. "Don't sympathise with him."

She tilted her head, reaching up to touch his face. "And without him, we won't have navigations, let alone a transwarp drive. We need to get off this rock, and the only way is mutual cooperation."

<<He's right, 'Tera,>> Hellfire walked past, arms ladened with circuit boards. <<I don't know if I'm really safe to be around.>>

"Just..." Depth Charge sighed, shoulders slumping. "Just don't give us a reason to slag you, kid."

<<I trust you to make a clean shot if I do,>> Hellfire retorted, rounding the fuselage to the ramp.

"Not a cheerful 'bot, is he?" Depth Charge observed.

"Trust me, getting possessed by Starscream isn't the definition of a fun time," Pantera growled, pulling away. "I'll keep an optic on him; you get the engines up and running. So nothing topside is salvageable?"

"Negative. EMP'ed and locked."

She departed, entering the hold after Hellfire. She found him in the cockpit, elbow-deep in the wires of the console.

<<I just can't shake the feeling that he's lying in wait, just watching.>> He did not look up from his work.

<<'Tera, the generator — that really happened, right?>>

"We both observed it."

<<Then I guess I should tell you,>> he stood up, pulling his hands out of the console. <<This graveyard? It's the same starhopper. In various states of damage. I checked their VINs. They're all the same.>>

"What are you saying?" It was rhetoric; she knew it, she just needed to hear it aloud, confirm her fears — or deny them.

<<It's a graveyard of possibilities for one starhopper.>> Hellfire clenched his hands, dared optic contact for an instant before glancing downward. <<And they're all registered to one Maximal.>>

"Warden Depth Charge of Colony Omikron," Pantera finished for him.

Hellfire nodded before turning away.

*

Cybertronian Orbit, Le Grange Point Two  
Three Stels Ago

The hangover was creeping up on her. Good. Surly, angry, ready for a fight — it would keep her alive. She took the co-pilot board; whenever riding inside Skyfire, it never felt right taking the captain's chair.

"Coordinates received," Skyfire reported. "Transmitted electronically. Sixty-two AUs, seven degrees lat, eight-nine degrees long, twelve degree arc."

"How unlike Starscream not to broadcast his own voice," Artemis grumbled. She had borrowed a pair of single-hand gats and an EMP shotgun from the Wreckers' weapons lockers, and was itching to fire them up; her escrima sticks were loaded for melee. Reality: she would be relying on the shotgun.

"It's a coded message." Skyfire suggested. "It had been on a frequency we've set up as protocol when we were on exploratory missions. If he had been compromised, he would have used a public line."

"Or he could be leading us into a trap," Artemis growled, loading the shotgun.

"There's that possibility, yes," Skyfire stated.

Artemis gave the console a withering glare. "Sky, need I remind you—?"

"No, you do not." Skyfire interrupted, hurt. Guilt rose in her throat, but she swallowed it before it could form into an apology. He still held onto hope; hope was an illusion in this situation.

"ETA of rendezvous?" She questioned.

"Within the megacycle; it's dependant on whether the Warworld is stationary or moving to meet us."

"You can't tell?"

There was a pause. "It is difficult to pinpoint."

"Sky, the thing is ten klicks wide. How can we not pick it up when it's within our own system?"

"A cloaking device, or one deflecting any subspace pings, or it may be running silent — "

"Look, Sky, I'm sorry if I seem short-tempered — "

"You have every reason to be." Now he interrupted her. "I've run the scenarios. The only person who would have known you were carrying the Matrix — "

" — which is why I lost all hope on Messatine. Which I want to ask — "

"The Delphi facility. I was ... curious ... after a report crossed my news feed regarding the death of a mine inspector. From the official reports, he had acute nucleon poisoning — not uncommon, but treatable. But just as he was about to make a recovery, he died of an unrelated illness — a t-cog malfunction, causing involuntary mistransformations that triggered a fatal spark spasm."

"You suspect foul play?"

"Nucleon can affect cognitive impairment and confusion when ingested, and to a lesser effect if inhaled. Unless injected, it loses its weapons-grade potency and behaves as a stimulant/depressant in Cybertronian physiology."

"Wait, injected?"

"Freebased, it's a circuit booster. A hit can last between a sol and a decacycle — it varies from 'bot to 'bot. The crash can be an emergency room event, and related deaths are caused by burning out the neural pathways. But it has to be prepared. Injecting pure nucleon retains its weapon-grade properties; it's not a matter of if one dies, but when — it's a time-bomb suicide."

"Or homicide," she brooded. "You think someone killed him. Was he important?"

"Low level inspector named Caution. Looking into his records, he had a previous conviction involving syk-dealing in his youth, but found religion and had an otherwise clean if unspectacular service record within the energy department."

"Maybe he had a relapse?"

"Negative. The cause of death was ruled as complications from nucleon poisoning. No connection of his previous drug conviction."

"But allows for the assumption to anyone digging deeper. Did you talk to the staff?"

"Only the ward nurse who took care of you; I did not feel confident to leave your side. You were my priority. But Ambulon was accommodating. I made a request to Springer to send someone to investigate further."

"Springer? Not Elita?"

"I've been too long with you." His cynicism in the situation replaced the wry grin he would have sported in robot mode. "Delphi is government-run — Senate connections. Although Pharma's discretion can be purchased — apologies, I did take liberty to transfer some of the reserves to his account — the majority of his staff are Senate-appointed, many assigned there as punishments for malpractice or bad calls. Contacting Elita might have raised flags in my questioning."

"Suspects?"

"None. As I said, ruled as complications. The Senate's seal was included in the file, which meant it had been reviewed and accepted. Nucleon is a time bomb; it's nearly impossible to trace exact moment of entry unless ingested, and stays in the system for sols if not decacycles."

"Perfect crime. Almost. Who had access to the patient?"

"Three-quarters of the staff, plus or minus. There's no one assigned doctor — and Pharma oversees all patients at one point or another — and the only ones ruled out as suspects are the nurses not assigned to the ward. All movement is tracked, all nurses and med techs follow an itinerary when not working with patients, and those who worked with Caution had been questioned as per protocol and cleared. Pharma oversees all enquiries."

"And what about Pharma? You mentioned his discretion could be bought."

"He has no love for the Senate. Looking into his record, he was assigned to Delphi by a military tribunal after he investigated allegations of nucleon smuggling using prisoners of war. His findings led to the indictment of three high-profile senators; they were not without influence, and he was permanently assigned to Messatine. It's an outpost; they are at times running on fumes between shipments. And Pharma refuses to sink to the depths of his predecessors. I did not want word of what happened to reach Iacon. He was happy to oblige."

"From the sounds of it, Caution may have been a victim of an amateur, if the reports are wrong."

"'Amateur'?"

"Serial killers start out somewhere. Some start with non-sentient lifeforms — an accident at first, but finding a thrill in the kills, and find ways to make them appear as accidents. Not so much in Cybertronian medical facilities, but a suspect — "

" — I hear they're referring to them as 'persons of interest' in official jargon now — "

" — would join the staff, whether as an orderly, or, for those invested in their craft, a nurse, and prey on the terminally ill. And when that no longer has the high it once had, they'll go after those in critical but in recovery. And so forth until they get caught. Sometimes they can get tens, even hundreds of victims before getting caught."

"It's a drug in itself," Skyfire observed.

"Many things are," Artemis pointed out, "some aren't so obvious. Kind of like wanting to be a cop because it's an excuse to get one's knuckles bloodied." To this, she chortled.

"You have a sense of justice; otherwise you would have forwent University and signed up for the Kaon pits."

"Against Tarn-forged? Sweetspark, I'm violent, not stupid. They'd rip through Iacon-forged like tin-foil. Hell, I've only known one Iaconian to go toe-to-toe with a Tarnian and survive, and that was Orion Pax. And he was modded from the get-go."

He was distracting her, and she was fine with that. But the conversation drew to a close. "Artemis," he alerted. "I've picked up the Warworld. Silent running. Telemetry is giving us clearance, starboard bay."

Artemis laced her fingers together and cracked her knuckles. "Time for this junkie to get her hit."

 

NEXT CHAPTER: Last


End file.
